


Carnival Road

by a_biting_smile (quickreaver)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Blood, Carny, M/M, Not brothers, Oral Sex, dark!boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1519301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quickreaver/pseuds/a_biting_smile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The carnival is Dean Winchester's playground. Until the kid shows up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carnival Road

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [](http://salt-burn-porn.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://salt-burn-porn.livejournal.com/)**salt_burn_porn** prompt "road trip." Veered a bit off the mark. Things to know: Sam and Dean are not brothers in this cracktastic AU. Set in the 1930's, with some of the period parlance and prejudices. Read on, reader ... read on!

It was 110 degrees in the shade when Benny threw down his mallet, spat in the dirt, and stomped away from the carny.

 _Fucking done with this shit,_ he'd hollered to no one in particular, to the cloudless sky, and by default, to Dean Winchester, who was sitting under the only tree for miles in this threadbare blanket of land. _There's money in this fucking mud show somewhere, I ain't gonna work no more if you ain't gonna pony up, Crowley, you queeny piece of shit._

Dean chewed on a big blade of grass and cleaned his nails with a knife. There was dust in every pore, his hair was blonde with it, but he hated the dried blood under his fingernails. He was classier than that, he was. Benny's broad retreating back, shirt oily with sweat, got smaller and smaller and Dean said to himself, "Well, ain't this just a piece of crud."

He was gonna miss Benny's barrel chest and easy Cajun growl when Dean had his dick deep in his ass. They were stuck in Kansas another week and there went Dean's windup toy. Benny was probably right, though; Crowley had funds squirreled away somewhere—he always paid Dean because Dean made quite certain everyone knew what he could do with his knives and swords and darts, and how good his aim was at fifty feet—so yeah, there was money. But Benny wasn't worth it so Benny was walkin'. Roustabouts were a dime a dozen these days. Guess Benny was lucky they didn't just red-light him in the middle of nowhere, up and leave him far from any town. Least there was Lawrence down the road a piece, as the crow flew.

So Dean stood up, smacked the dust off his trousers, and wandered back to his tent for a bellyful of conciliatory whiskey. It was gonna be a long week.

|||

Two days later, the kid showed up. None too soon, by Dean's reckoning. Crowley'd been eying Dean to huckster for the contortionist and Dean wouldn't have half minded if it wasn't Garth. He could always get the great unwashed masses to buy his malarkey, but for _Garth_? It was embarrassing, is what it was. He duped Rufus into barking instead, at least for the last few shows.

Dean was kicking sawdust at the pie car, clear of the high-noon sun and enjoying the most pleasant company of Pamela Barnes, or 'Pavlena the Seeress' as the rubes knew her, when he saw the rangy bag of bones talking to Crowley. And Crowley had his 'you want me to _hire_ you, you have got to be joking' face on, which was all a ruse because the show needed help in a bad way. A good handful of grunts had drank a piece too much and wound up drying out in the local jail, at which point Crowley had determined they were neither worth his energy nor members of the Alaister Brothers Carnival and Wondershow any longer.

"Hire the kid," Dean scoffed, and Pamela flipped a card. Just ordinary playing cards, but she claimed to read them as good as any tarot. Sometimes Dean was pretty damned sure she did have The Sight, but if she did, why was she following this dog and pony brigade?

"No, don't," she murmured, and Dean shifted in his seat, narrowed eyes across the lot to Crowley, as the gaffer bartered with the kid and eventually, they shook hands. The kid stood a good head taller than Crowley and moved like he still had some growing to do. Dean absently wondered if the kid was proportionate, or if he still had some growing to do there, too.

"Why you say that?" he asked her.

She tapped the Ace of Spades like that explained everything. Clucked her tongue.

Dean watched the kid walk off towards Gabe's, likely to see what work needed to be done. He wasn't nearly so broad as Benny, but if Dean appreciated anything, it was a well-honed edge, and change.

|||

Come teardown, the clouds had opened and rain was poured upon the land, enough to make the crew move as quickly as they could in the slipsliding mud. Lightning cracked across the sky and spooked the animals. Spooked Dean too, getting so close he could feel the hairs on his neck prickle as he sat in the cab of the truck, waiting for the last of the circus to tuck tail.

The shotgun door flung open in a gust, and the kid threw himself inside, soaked to the skin. Sam. He'd said his name was Sam. Seemed eager to be Dean's friend, because he didn't know any better. And maybe because Dean'd offered to share his whiskey last night. Just being neighborly.

The kid was taking deep breaths and instantly shivering. Not enough meat on his bones, knobby knees and elbows making angles in his wet, worn clothes. Hair dripping into his eyes. Teeth like sugar cubes when he grinned at Dean.

"Gabe says I ride with you." The way he said 'ride', like 'rahhhd', betrayed the Southern drawl he'd been pretending he didn't have.

Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, knocked out a beat with the silver ring on his thumb. "Dripping all over my seat," he said.

The kid's relief sagged a little, like his balloon had just been popped by one of Dean's sharp, pretty knives.

Nothing good comes easy.

Dean wrestled the truck into gear and fell in line with the others in the caravan, smiling into the storm.

|||

Two weeks later, the kid looked like he was starting to figure things out.

The troop had headed south, into Oklahoma, where the weather was turning parched and angry. Dean's blood ran sluggish. He was too hot to work up much ambition, and Crowley knew better than to ask for more than Dean was willing to give. Dean made a mint for the operation with his face and fast hands. And the fact he could swallow a two-foot shaft of steel like it was nothing didn't hurt.

He helped Missouri raise the cook shack, and watched the king pole being lumbered into place. The kid—Sam—was tall and green and pushed into the jobs that needed sweat and leverage, like this one. He had long ropey muscles growing under browning skin, shining slick under the Midwest sun. Not that Dean gave a good damn or anything.

Once the pole was fit securely into its foundation, rising like a signpost to Heaven, he took two tin cups and a clean bucket from the mess tent, filled the bucket with tepid water. One of the other new roustabouts moved towards Dean when he approached, but was chased away by a grab from Caleb, who'd been with the crew long enough to know. To know _things_.

Sam looked up when Dean stopped in front of him, straightened his shoulders.

"Brought you water," Dean said, watching Sam's mouth.

There was an almost-smile, a nervous dodge, before Sam swiped at his forehead and smeared the dirt. "Why?"

Dean barked out a laugh. "Because surely you have the sense God gave a mule and know you've gotta drink when it's hot out. Before you get the sunstroke."

"No. I mean, why're you doin' this ... for me."

"Because you're not stupid enough to say no."

Sam was watching Dean's mouth right back, something quaint in his eyes, and he took a tin cup full of water from him.

That night, behind the wild cat cages, Sam took more than that. He took what Dean gave him, a hot tongue and biting teeth, and he hardly mewled when Dean put the cool of a blade alongside Sam's neck, ran the metal down to cut off the buttons of his shirt.

Dean tasted blood when he kissed Sam, and it wasn't because he bit too hard, or that there was red on his teeth and lips.

Sam just tasted like blood.

Dean drank it up like tepid water, and Sam started to struggle—though it might've been to get to his belt, Dean couldn't be sure because he didn't want the certainty. He knew what he knew, which was that Sam was his now.

|||

"You need to stop." Pamela said in a voice like a landslide. Low and serious and it got Dean's attention.

"What? Why." Wasn't really a question. He dragged the knife across a whetstone as the world moved around him, all the warm bodies it took to make the carnival ready for Edmond, Oklahoma.

"You think you have this all under control, but you don't."

"Your cards tell you that?"

She gathered her skirts and sat down beside him, crowding his space. They had an unspoken agreement, he and Pamela, nothing compassionate or gentle but an understanding of their own malfunctions. He had a thing for knives and blood and sometimes boys; she liked opium a little more than she should, and that stuff didn't come cheap. They also fucked on occasion.

"I believe the cards," she said, by way of agreement.

"So?"

"Dean." She grabbed his hand, stilling the blade. "Something ain't right. I dreamt it, not just the cards. There was a bird in my vardo and gold on your eyes. And the sky ran black."

Dean paused, looked up across the tents and flags. The blue was unbroken, but he'd seen a black blizzard before, a dust storm so big and dark, it choked out the daylight. So had she.

He patted her arm, smiled. Felt the sweat and dirt break on his skin. "Ain't nothing we can do if the sand starts to blow--"

"It ain't the sand," she said urgently, and he didn't think he'd every seen her so serious. Never once. "It's him."

Him. There'd only been one 'him' since Kansas. Dean's gaze found Sam, in a sleeveless undershirt with his suspenders down at his hips, throwing dice with the acrobats across the clearing. He was a giant compared to the small wiry men, getting bulky from driving stakes and consistent food. If nothing else, Crowley made sure they ate well because that kept folks appeased when the stipends were late. Helped stave off a mutiny.

"Yeah, well."

Sam looked up, like he felt eyes upon him. And he grinned, all crooked and clever. He had a wad of bills in his fist.

Dean felt Pamela pull in breath.

|||

Dean didn't stop.

He strapped his favorite knife to his thigh and found Sam, bunked under the stars because it was too hot to sleep in the tents and the kid seemed to like the open air. And because he was Dean's, no one fucked with him. If they did, they'd wind up with a shiv between their shoulder blades and a roadside grave, if they were lucky.

Sam's eyes flickered open as Dean crossed the yard, kicking stones to make his presence known. Sam rolled onto his back and stared at the stars in the blue-black sky. Dean watched his chest rise and fall, could just barely see the sweat at his throat under the spineless glow of a Cheshire moon.

"Lay down with me," Sam said, and Dean stopped. It was the first time Sam had asked anything of him; that Sam hadn't waited for Dean to push and pull him into position and tell him exactly where the knife was going, where the next scar would be hiding.

Dean didn't say anything, just watched.

Sam was still staring at the night when he sighed. "What're ya, chicken?"

There was the slightest shush when Dean drew his knife. He sat on the ground beside Sam, on a corner of his blanket.

"Gimme your knife," Sam said, and Dean blinked, incredulous. A wind kicked up and brought the sour smell of animal across the grounds. A nightbird cried, and Dean gripped the handle, tested the weight of it, stabbed the blade into the earth with a thunk.

"That's as close as you're getting to it," he said.

"Okie-doke." Sam finally sat up, watching. Strange, narrow eyes, like he had something else in him. Like Chinese or one of them exotics ... or fox.

Dean bit his tongue, hard enough to taste blood and make his mouth water. And that was when he noticed Sam's perfect pink tongue peeking between his own teeth, the way he grinned when he was exceptionally pleased with himself. Not afraid.

And Dean knew Pamela was right. God damned Pavlena the Seeress was right.

"Who the fuck are you?" Dean said through the blood, spit and sting.

"I don't know; does it matter?" Sam's brows tugged for a moment, as though genuinely considering the question. But then his eyes turned dead and he stood up, a towering shadow, and began unbuttoning his trousers.

There was a sudden buzzing behind Dean’s eyes, the animal part of his brain screaming at him to run run run.

_No, this has always been The Plan._

Maybe this was what he deserved? His Revelations? It sure as hell wasn’t fear, because Dean had never tasted fear. Not ever.

A jolt of adrenaline sent shivers, like moth wings, to the pit of his belly.

Dean reached a hand up to pull at Sam’s dungarees, finding the open fly, and pressed fingers past the clothing to cup all of Sam, and fuck if he didn't know why he'd never done this before, why he'd never let Sam tell him what to do and break him like a wild horse.

He clambered to his knees and felt Sam's hand rake through his sweaty hair, the palm big enough to cover his entire scalp. Dean kept plying touches at Sam's cock through his underwear, smelled the musk of him, and if someone saw them? Good.

Sam’s cock grew hard and thick, and Dean tugged it free of all garments; it bobbed out, the head brushing Dean's lips with a bleed of slickness. Dean licked at it, and Sam's grip tightened on the back of Dean's head. A slow draw towards him, and Dean opened his lips to drag over the crown, tongue prodding across the slit and below. Sam tasted salty, bitter, mixing with the metal of Dean's blood.

Sam made not a sound as he looked down, his eyes in hollows and a grin stretched across his face.

Dean opened his throat because he could. Sam's cock was considerably larger than any sword he'd ever swallowed but the girth of it was a challenge, something Dean wanted as a reward. He wanted Sam to be pleased with him, in ways he couldn't name. Dean’s eyes watered and he made small feral noises as he rolled up and down, taking all of Sam over and again, clawing at the jut of Sam's hips and pounding his nose into the tangle of hair at the base.

The unforgiving ground cut into Dean's knees, but it felt so fucking destined that he didn't care. Got hard in spite of it. Just to spite the ground. Take that, fucking ground. Fucking world.

And as Sam came, as Sam shot down his throat, Dean shoved at his own trousers and jerked himself off, even daring to bite. Sam grabbed a great fistful of Dean's hair and pulled until the roots stung and tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. Dean moaned around a mouthful of Sam, coming all over the blanket.

Dean panted—slid off Sam, scrubbed a hand over his bruised lips—and looked up. Saw Sam watching him with those foreign eyes. And for a moment, Dean swore they flicked gold.

|||

 

Pamela read the cards after Dean Winchester vanished. After the kid named Sam was never seen again. But she didn't tell anyone what the cards said, and she never had another dream of birds or black skies again.

The carnival hit the road and left Edmond before the sun set the next day. And it never returned.


End file.
